


Remembering the Future

by CalicoJay



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalicoJay/pseuds/CalicoJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Malone's grandson wonders uneasily why she insists on taking him to see the fierce-eyed doctor with the missing fingers.  Snapshots and glimpses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Written for emei

 

 

His grandmother taught Scott his letters. It's why he's able to read the label on the sharply characterless, grey door - _D-R-dot-W-dot-K-dot-P-A_ \- before it swings open and he hides behind his grandmother (who smells comfortingly of a sweet scent he can now associate with the marzipan treats he tasted for the first time that afternoon). 

Scott hears her chuckle and furiously resists all attempts to detach him from the sensible leg of her sensible grey slacks (because she is a sensible, energetic grandmother and he loves her) and he knows she is older and tougher than even the stern man who opened the grey door. The girl who runs out of the room (and away from the stern man) bumps into Scott, and he only has time for an indignant grunt before his grandmother takes advantage of his distraction to pull him cheerfully into the office. She nods an apology to the yellow-haired man following his daughter out. 

Then the door swings shut and Scott swallows. 

"He's been having upsets and troubles with sleeping lately," Grandmother said. She is sitting straight-backed and stately in the little corduroy-bound pouf, and Scott feels a little better. Then she nods to the Doctor, Scott follows her gaze and he feels nervous all over again.

The Doctor has severe, dark brows and a strong, jutting jaw. He is older than Scott's father. Black eyes. Dark hair, peppered faintly with grey. And, when standing, he is taller than the mahogany mountain of his desk and shelf.

Scott quails a little inside. He is five years old and nearly grown up, but his grandmother will have him see this doctor, and no one else. She told him so before, _I've known Will since he was a boy, and there's no one better at settling people than he_.

Looking at the Doctor's tall, broad-shouldered frame, Scott can believe it. He wonders just how the Doctor "settles" people. 

"Thank you, Mary." The Doctor's gaze doesn't waver from Scott's, and Scott fidgets. 

"The Doctor doesn't bite, Scott," Scott's grandmother's expression is reproving and all Scott wants to do is cry that he's not sure how taking him to this man with the frightening eyes can possibly help him with the nightmares he's been having about bright men exploding into golden dust and - 

"I see," the Doctor's voice is gravely and low. He doesn't wear spectacles - Scott thought all Doctors did. "Scott, if you were an animal, what sort do you think you would be?"

...and what kind of question is that for a Doctor to ask?

Scott doesn't know the answer, though, and says so.

"That's quite all right," Doctor Parry murmurs. He draws a sleek pen from his breast pocket and writes something in blue ink and a strong, cramped hand. 

Then the memory fades into something dim and silver in the back of Scott's mind.

But Scott remembers that he slept well that night.

* * *

Scott almost forgets about the strong, quiet doctor who looked at him and knew him immediately. But he's pretty sure never quite forgot the black, searching gaze, because he makes sure not to be sick too often (and it is six more years before he has to see the Doctor again). He tries to keep the nausea from his grandmother, but she looks at him piercingly (her eyes drift to something flitting around his left shoulder, and when he turns his head to see what she's looking at, there is nothing there). 

But she looks him in the eyes again, tousles his hair affectionately and says that she hasn't been to see "Will" for a while, anyhow. 

So he finds himself trailing from his grandmother's hand and pretending he isn't, because he's eleven and far too old to be holding hands with _anyone_ , even if it's his sensible, energetic grandmother (whom he loves). He trips over a cobblestone and asks his chuckling grandmother why he has to go see _this_ Doctor.

"I knew him when he was a boy." 

Scott can't understand how this is important. His grandmother is old--she must've known heaps of people when they were younger. 

"It's different with Will." The creases around her eyes deepen in thought. He's accustomed to seeing her think, because she is so smart--she used to do a lot of maths and is even a doctor, too, only not the kind like _the_ Doctor. "He was very like a younger sibling to me. He was even there when you were born, you know."

Scott isn't sure what to think about that, and falls silent until he reaches the grey door again. This time he reads the whole plate: _Dr. W. K. Parry_.

He's heard his grandmother call the Doctor "Will" before. Idly, he asks what the "K" stands for.

"Kirjava," the Doctor's strong frame fills the doorway. "Hello, Scott. Mary."

As his grandmother and the Doctor exchange pleasantries, Scott momentarily forgets his roiling stomach. A cat! 

She - he gets the impression she is haughtily female - is a large cat, with a long, luxurious and subtly-hued coat. But her fur! Her fur is so soft-looking he has already taken two steps forward, his hand outstretched to touch it when the look in her proud green eyes stops him.

"She doesn't like to be touched," the Doctor cautions. Scott drops his hand, and retreats behind his grandmother again, feeling very much as if he is still five years old. But his grandmother smiles. 

"Hello, Kirjava. How are you?"

Kirjava (did the Doctor name her after _himself?_ ) begins to purr. The sweet rumble is so loud and shameless that Scott blushes.

"Stress." Suddenly businesslike, the Doctor uncaps an expensive-looking fountain pen with his teeth, still looking at him. Kirjava shifts to make room for him (odd behaviour for a cat, Scott thinks - his cats always glares him down when he tries to ask for permission to take the chair they are napping on). He strokes her with his right hand and writes with his left and it - it is missing the ring and little fingers.

He wonders how it happened, and the question is out of his mouth before he can really check it. He is not as sorry as his grandmother would like him to be, either - he is genuinely curious. After all, the Doctor doesn't look much like a Doctor; maybe he ran away when he was a boy because he wanted to be a carpenter, and then got hurt badly and Scott's grandmother took him in, cared for him and changed his mind. Scott's grandmother always knew the right thing to say for every occasion.

"It's nothing like that," the Doctor smiles then, for the first time. It makes his jaw look less heavy and his eyebrows less severe. But his eyes are still fierce and Scott is strongly reminded of Kirjava's glowing green ones. "I had a few adventures when I was younger."

Scott's grandmother snorts.

The Doctor arches his straight black brows and turns to her. "If you like, I can prescribe something for him, but it will be easier if he eats those spicy foods in more moderation." 

Kirjava flicks her tail in agreement. 

"And you, Mary," the Doctor looks severely at her. "Be sure to get more sleep. You look very tired."

He is not, Scott reflects as they turn into the streets of Oxford and daylight, your run-of-the-mill doctor. 

* * *

He is seventeen and waiting for a girl who _said_ she would see him at the Oxford Botanic Gardens by the bench. He doesn't see the girl. He sees the Doctor, instead. 

He is sitting on a nondescript bench with his beautiful cat stretched out over his lap. From the tips of her forepaws to the end of her beautiful tail, she is over a metre long. 

He doesn't realise that he hailed the Doctor, but the Doctor turns, his normally fierce gaze clouded by something resembling grief. Then it clears a little. "Hello, Scott."

Scott murmurs a greeting, feeling as if he has intruded on something very private. 

"A girl?" the Doctor says quietly. "I knew a girl who could lie to angels," He looks suddenly old and lonely, sitting on the bench. He looks suddenly lost and loveless, sitting on the bench.

And Scott knows, without asking, that the Doctor had loved the girl who could lie to angels. He also knows that the gleam in the Doctor's eyes was something that isn't a tear, but something infinitely stronger and sadder and somehow joyous. 

Scott feels like a voyeur.

So he turns back to Kirjava and, only remembering that she does not like to be touched after she shies away from his questing hand, pretends he spotted something on the bench by her paw instead. 

"Do you remember, Scott," the Doctor makes mention, "what I asked you when we first met?"

Scott is not sure what he means, and says so.

"I asked you what type of animal you thought you would be. Do you think you know now?"

Scott has never given the idea much thought. Now, he feels suddenly anxious, as if he has been called upon in class to do the question on the board when he did not complete the homework.

The Doctor's gaze slides to something just to the right of Scott's kneecap. Scott is strongly reminded of the way his grandmother's eyes would wander to something above his head, at his feet, around his arm, and yet have her attention focussed solely on him. "I must ask you, however. Do you like cats?"

Scott nods, and his eyes drift to Kirjava, who is giving him a lazily approving look.

The Doctor smiles one of his rare smiles and Scott leaves.

* * *

"I'm waiting for someone," the Doctor says, the next time Scott sees him in the gardens. He is wearing a black armband, like Scott. "You were close to your grandmother. How are you feeling?"

Scott shrugs. He is twenty-four, and engaged, but he feels a little lost without his grandmother. She had been kind and sensible and very, very smart. 

"A physicist in her time," the Doctor tilts his head.

Then it all comes pouring out. Grandmother is the first death in his family. She was, in many ways, closer to him than his mother. And the Doctor nods sympathetically with each new outburst, as if he understands. 

And Scott realises his eyes are wet and he isn't going to see his Gran'ma Mary again. 

"No, you won't," the Doctor says. "But you will, most assuredly, be _with_ her again. 

_...Huh?_

"No matter what, Scott," the Doctor coughs. "Do not lie. Tell your story to the world as you have experienced it, because you should never be ashamed. It will get you nowhere, if you are ashamed of the person you are now."

And then he closes his eyes. A flash of cream at the corner of Scott's vision reveals Kirjava, slightly silvered now--how old _is_ that cat?--but still vital and strong, twining sinuously around the Doctor's grey-clad legs.

Taking the hint, and fingering the armband he wears, Scott leaves. 

He dreams that night of his grandmother Mary holding her arms to the sky, where three winged women watch her dissolve into golden starbursts.

* * *

"It just figures," Mrs. Parry says fretfully. "That Cat, so hoity-spoiled all her life, and never letting me or the children or anyone else so much as look at her funny and living five times what a cat should... and gone as soon as he breathes his last..."

She gives a funny, choked little sob, and Scott thinks of golden sparks as he watches Will K. Parry's still face in the coffin.

He bows.

And then he turns and walks away.

* * *

 


End file.
